Hint: Nothing of importance.
Our culture has decided that gaining weight and going up in terms of clothing size is the absolute worst thing in the world.
As an eating disorder therapist in private practice in Rockville, Maryland, I help teens and adults to find freedom from constantly thinking about food, anxiety around food and weight, and body-hatred.
Many people struggle with harsh inner criticism when they must go up in clothing size.
Therefore, I wanted to shed some light on what going up in clothing size really means.
It means that you’ve gone up in clothing size. That’s it.
Going up in terms of clothing size says absolutely nothing about your happiness, health, attractiveness, intelligence, value as a person-or literally anything else of significance.
Maybe you are recovering from an eating disorder. Maybe you are simply getting older and your body is going through natural changes. Maybe you are healing your relationship to food and have suppressed your body below your natural weight for a long time. Maybe you just had a baby. Maybe you lost weight due to anxiety and stress and now your body is going back to it’s natural weight. Maybe you are struggling with compulsive eating or binge eating. Maybe the store that you are shopping in has a different sizing system than where you typically go. Maybe you are going through some life changes. Maybe you are experiencing natural weight fluctuations.
Regardless of the reason, it’s so important to be compassionate with yourself. It’s unlikely that you would criticize and berate a loved one for changing clothing sizes. You deserve to be kind to yourself.
It’s also important to recognize that despite the lies that the 60-billion-dollar diet-industry sells us, our worth is this world is about so much more than our bodies. Our bodies are not “slabs of marble” and they are meant to change as we age. Thus, putting our self-worth into our body and appearance is a recipe for life-long discontent.
Instead, I’d urge you to ask yourself, what do you truly want to be remembered for? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? I have yet to read an obituary that talks about how they fondly remember someone for being “the perfect size four” or for “being thin.”
People will remember you for the sparkle in your eyes when you laugh, the strength of your relationships, and way that you pursued your passions, and how you gave back to others. All of these things are 10,000 times more important than the your weight or the size of your clothing.
When we are caught up in focusing on our weight and body size, we lose sight of what’s truly meaningful and our real values.
The Bottom Line
If you are struggling with a fixation with weight and your body or an unhealthy relationship to food, it’s so important to reach out for help from a professional. It’s not your fault that you are suffering and you can make the brave choice to get some help with this.
Imagine if you could take all of the time and energy that you spend focused on weight, body, and food, on things that were more meaningful.
You might discover that your life is much more joyful than you ever could have imagined.
You could change the world that we live in and make it a better place.
No matter what your mind is telling you, this I know to be true. You are not more valuable if you take up less space in this world. Your worth is not found in your body size or shape.
No matter what clothing size you are, BMI (which doesn’t actually tell us anything of importance, but that’s for another article), or number on a scale-you are enough, just as you are.
Jennifer Rollin, MSW, LCSW-C: is an eating disorder therapist in private practice in Rockville, Maryland. Jennifer specializes in helping teens and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, and bulimia, and body image issues. Jennifer provides eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Germantown, and Washington D.C. She provides eating disorder recovery coaching via phone to people worldwide. Connect with Jennifer through her website: www.jenniferrollin.com